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Indoor Ag-Con – the US indoor agriculture industry’s leading conference – opened its largest ever event this morning in Las Vegas, NV, to discuss the prospects for this technology-rich industry.

4th Annual Indoor Ag-Con Logo

There are already at least 9x the number of legal cannabis cultivators than indoor produce farms in the US.

Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB)April 05, 2016

Indoor agriculture is one of the fastest-growing parts of global farming as it aids in tackling issues of drought, is the primary method of cultivating legal cannabis and offers local fresh produce year-round to consumers. Indoor Ag-Con – the US indoor agriculture industry’s leading conference – opened its largest ever event this morning in Las Vegas, NV, to discuss the prospects for this technology-rich industry.

The two-day seminar brings together corporate executives from the technology, investment, vertical farming, greenhouse growing, and food and beverage industries, along with hydroponic, aquaponic and aeroponic startups and urban farmers. Speakers as diverse as Charlie Grinnell, CEO of Harvest Automation, and Professor Merle Jensen, who first coined the term ‘controlled environment agriculture,’ will discuss topics such as big data, robotics, LED lighting and nutrients.
The event includes an expanded exhibition hall area, with more than 50 exhibitors.

At lunch, participants will enjoy produce harvested on site from ZipGrow towers kindly provided by Bright Agrotech. Chef Darren Brown of Village Farms has consulted on the menu.

A number of companies will be launching new products at the event, for instance, New Zealand controls company Autogrow Systems has announced a new single room controller, Roomboss, designed specifically for controlled environment agriculture grows and features a simple graphic user interface. It provides complete control of irrigation and dosing, as well as climate control.

Indoor Ag-Con is also debuting a new white paper at the event, sponsored by Lighting Science Group and in conjunction with the Development Fund, entitled “The Influence of Legal Cannabis on the Indoor Agriculture Industry.” The key takeaways from the paper are:

Indoor agriculture’s rapid adoption over recent years has been driven by consumer demand for two crops: legal cannabis and produce. Combined, the potential addressable market size is around $18bn, and each is growing at 20+% pa, making it one of the country’s fastest growing industries. Private investment in the combined industry more than doubled last year to nearly $300mn.

Owing to the divergent history of legal cannabis and produce, there’s been limited interaction between their respective growers, despite their using similar growing techniques and equipment, and facing many common challenges in business models and fundraising. This situation is beginning to change as suppliers increasingly work with growers from both crops, and as companies turn to farming both crops.

There are already at least 9x the number of legal cannabis cultivators than indoor produce farms in the US. The area of greatest commonality between the two sets of growers is in the technologies that they utilize; the same controls systems, HVAC units, CO2 systems and LED lights are found in both farm types. It would therefore be logical for growers to combine forces to develop technology solutions that could address both markets simultaneously.

Indoor Ag-Con has also hosted events in New York, NY, and in Singapore in the past year. Since it was founded in 2013, Indoor Ag-Con has captured an international audience and attracted some of the top names in the business. Its events have welcomed over 1,500 participants from more than 20 countries, as far away as New Zealand and the Philippines. In the past year alone, it has hosted two TechCrunch Disrupt winners as speakers at its events, and has been featured in international media, such as The Guardian.

Newbean Capital, the host of the conference, is a registered investment advisor; some of its clients or potential clients may participate in the conference. The team is ably assisted in Las Vegas by event planning company Origin Event Planning and by trade show manager Brede Allied.